self portrait

like the running of a major scale,
a voice that glides and gloats,
she sings a verse of david now
and makes the lyrics float.

she's never read the book itself
or understood its words,
but the ears will follow joyfully
once her spells are heard.

and in the book, the man and wife
profess their deep, dark bliss;
they gather years and sow success
though she is blind to this.

she prattles on throughout the song,
a clear and sugared line,
but when she reaches solomon
she's caught up in the brine.

the message must be understood
before the voice may sing;
the singer must be shepherd too
before he may be king.

scene, she says, scene, like motion,
like bright cars on dark nights
or rain on the roadway, scene:
a beautiful dream, an ocean
inside of a seashell inside of your ear,
pace, and great lust.

we are following the traffic
out of the city, stopped,
waiting and watching taillights blink.
her hands are long,
tapered fingers and a sharp, bright manicure,
big gestures and a loud voice.

scene, she says, like progress,
or the way we look back
and smile, scene like the studio
when there's a singer on a saturday night,
and the heels she walks in on,
slow, and so proud.

she draws the night around her neck,
a covering of deep and unbreakable sky,
to keep her skin from sloughing off
and help attain the stellar high.

against her skin the indigos swirl,
the blues and blacks against her hands,
and as a crystal refracts in the light
her cry is a long and aerial span.

where gods will guard with bow on string,
her lips will part and loose a light;
as taurus glides and lepus lurks,
she joins her envy in the bright.

in a new place,
in a new time with new opportunities,
with new doors opening and closing
is it possible to hold onto the past?
and if i do not, what is lost?
in a new place,
all things can be made over:
the body, the bedroom, attachments.
i clean out my social life like a closet:
this friendship is old,
does that make it precious, or worn thin?
in a new place,
it is easier to hold to the modern, urban mantras.
(out with the old, in with the foreign.)
and as the new place becomes
known, becomes old,
there is always the possibility
of another new place:
always the inevitable uncertainty
of having to start again.